Meanwhile, Canada is seeing its own protests on Ottawa's Parliament Hill, where hundreds are demonstrating against TransCanada's "Keystone XL" proposal, a $7bn project to pipe crude oil from Alberta's oil sands to Texas.

Are they a mob of over-privileged, unemployed trustafarians? Many of them likely are. Does it matter? Dismiss them if you will, they're motivated and mobilized. An apathetic population asked to foot the bill for the fallout from credit default swaps is exactly what the 1% ordered. The last few years the country has been told to fear an economic collapse if the masses fail to fork over what amounts to corporate welfare, and more recently, that more jobs will be lost if we close tax loopholes. Many claim that these protesters are anti-capitalist, but most are simply disillusioned by a form of capitalism they suggest is so far out of whack that the opportunity for bootstrap pulling is nearly non-existent. They propose that the current environment unapologetically favors the richest of the rich.

12.02pm: "Words have meaning" is the title of a new attack ad from the Rick Perry presidential campaign – hammering at a point Perry tried to make in last week's presidential debate.

Perry said that Romney changed the wording of his own book between the hardback and paperback editions to downplay the national significance of his Massachusetts healthcare reforms – reforms that were adopted by and large by the Obama administration for its healthcare reforms.

Expect to see more of it in the coming weeks as the two sides grapple.

Translation: Romney wrote that before it was politically convenient to oppose ObamaCare, so he had to cover up a potentially politicially damaging position. There's a shocker, Mitt Romney is trying to alter his past positions to get the Republican nomination; only this time, he may get away with it since the attacks haven't stuck.

For those who support it, the Keystone XL pipeline project is the way of the future. They say TransCanada Corp's ribbon of steel funnelling crude oil from Alberta to Texas will bring untold benefits, from security in the North American energy supply to thousands of jobs and economic benefits for the communities along the pipeline's path.

Not so fast, say others, who see nothing good if the $7-billion project goes ahead. Those who oppose the project cite the potential environmental impact of the pipeline, on both the areas it goes through and the original source of the crude: the oil sands of northern Alberta.

1.09pm: At the weekend, Saturday Night Live parodied the Republican presidential debates – hard to parody you might think and you'd be right. Only worth watching if you ever thought: "I wonder what Alec Baldwin would be like parodying Rick Perry?"

Sadly this link to the SNL skit is only available to US readers because a domestic American satire show has to carefully protect its international copyright. And also because then people living outside the US might think that SNL is still actually funny.

Cain got 37%, well ahead of Rick Perry, whose campaign made a substantial effort lobbying the activists but only got 15%. Mitt Romney, who ran only a low-key campaign, came third with 14%%. But confirmation of the absurdity of the straw poll came with no-hoper Rick Santorum tallying 11% in fourth place. Since Santorum barely registers 1% in credible national polls, to get 11% tells you more about the Florida straw poll participants.

The real shock result was the self-destruction of Michele Bachmann, who came dead last with just 1.5%. "Is Michele Bachmann toast?" wonders Mother Jones. No – a piece of toast would presumably get more than 1.5% in a poll.

"Some in the conservative movement are still searching for Mr. or Ms. Wonderful," said one person who moves in Christie fund-raising circles. "But Christie is a guy who through his whole career has said what he means, and he has said no."

2.04pm: Obama is now speaking at the LinkedIn town hall, and is talking up his jobs plan.

He'll be taking questions from LinkedIn members – and if the social network stays true to form the first question will be "I'd like to add you to my professional network" from someone he barely knew in high school.

2.07pm: Purely by chance – surely? – the first question to Obama is from Chuck, an unemployed man in Texas. Which is strange because, according to Republicans, there is no unemployment in Texas thanks to Perrynomics.

Anyway, Obama says this man would get a job if Congress would just pass his America Jobs Act. (Obviously he doesn't say that exactly but I paraphrase.)

2.21pm: In Washington, the Senate is scheduled to vote later today on the spending bill to extend the government's funding into the new fiscal year starting on Friday, and increase federal funds for disaster relief operations.

Senate Democrats want to back a new bill that does not require spending cuts to release new money for disaster relief. But Republican leader Mitch McConnell is saying Republicans will filibuster the bill and so block it.

In that case, the Senate could pass the House Republican bill it has already rejected on Friday. Or another deal could be made in the Senate – anything more complex could involve recalling House members back to vote in Washington. Hmm.

2.29pm: A question for Obama at the LinkedIn town hall about how the government can help veterans use networks to find jobs. "Maybe they'll end up using LinkedIn, I don't know," says Obama in the course of a much longer and serious answer to the question from which I have selectively quoted from.

2.35pm: Ha, now a question from a wonky looking man in glasses. "I don't have a job but that's because I was lucky enough to live in Silicon Valley for a while and work for a small start-up down the street here that did quite well so I'm unemployed by choice," says the man. Eh? "My question is: would you please raise my taxes?"

A big round of applause from the audience.

"What as the start-up, by the way, can you give me a little hint?" asks Obama. "It's a search engine," says the man, looking pleased with himself.

Oh, a search engine? It was AltaVista, right? Ask Jeeves? I can't think of any.

2.48pm: So the "please raise my taxes" question came from former Google employee, Douglas Edwards, who has a book out, I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59.

Edwards talked to a friend recently who is still at the company, another who got in early, feeling lucky. The friend could easily retire now and spend the rest of his life travelling the world on a yacht, Edwards suggests, but he doesn't seem able to leave. When Edwards asked him why, the friend came up with a couple of reasons: "One was he was interested in technology and there is no company that has better tools, better data sets, than this one. And the other reason was this: he was afraid to leave. Google was the only job he'd known and he wasn't sure what else he would do. He was scared of not being there."

2.58pm: The presidential town hall's over, and Obama exits to the strains of Hail to the Chief, which seems rather old-fashioned given the high-tech surroundings at the Computer History Museum. Surely this would be more modern and compelling?

Activists connected to the Occupy Wall Street protests have published the name, phone number and family details of a senior New York police officer they accuse of using pepper spray on peaceful female protesters at a march on Saturday.

The officer was named in Twitter posts and on various activist websites as NYPD deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, of Patrol Borough Manhattan South.

The posts also cite an apparent civil rights charge against the officer dating from 2007.

YouTube footage of the incident, which has been widely circulated since Saturday, appears to show a white-shirted NYPD officer firing the spray into the eyes of the protesters, who are penned in by other officers with orange netting. As the officer walks away, two of the women crumple to the ground, screaming in pain.

But while about 15 to 20 media outlets waited for an hour outside Trump Tower, at an entrance where Romney aide Will Ritter was posted, it's unlikely there will ever be a publicly-released photo of Romney and Trump or even of Romney walking into Trump Tower. It was public knowledge that Romney was slated to meet with Trump at 2pm today at Trump Tower, but the campaign obviously didn't want any photos of the event.

4.14pm: On the unfulfilled yearning for New Jersey governor Chris Christie to enter the GOP presidential race, Kevin Manahan of New Jersey's Star-Ledger has already written the definitive piece on the subject: "Fuhgeddaboudit!"

Can we stop the insanity? Chris Christie will never be president. There, I said it. Quote me. Note the date and time. Chisel this onto my tombstone when I pass, probably from Christie Overload.

He won't be president. Not in 2013. Not in 2017. Not from here to Hawaii. Not from here to eternity.

Manahan was not a fan of the fawning attempts to suck Christie into the race:

That hourlong Piers Morgan interview on CNN was so sugary, Christie should get tested for diabetes — and this is the guy the network bills as the toughest interviewer on TV? Pulleeze. They ask tougher questions on Family Feud.

The National Park Service says the Washington Monument remains closed indefinitely to visitors because of the damage sustained during the earthquake. AP reports:

Structural engineers have done a preliminary inspection inside the monument, where numerous cracks and chips were found after the 5.8-magnitude quake on Aug. 23. Starting Tuesday, engineers will begin rappelling down the sides of the monument to check for damage outside.

Dozens of pieces of stone fell in the interior of the monument during and after the quake, and park service officials say they need to make sure the obelisk is safe before the public is allowed inside.

I have spent more than a year predicting the electoral demise of Mitt Romney. Here is a Mormon, once fervently pro-choice candidate running to lead an electorate whipped into a frenzied belief that Barack Obama's health-care plan poses the most dire threat to liberty in American history, having imposed virtually the same plan in Massachusetts himself. Indeed, the economist who designed Romneycare also designed the Affordable Care Act. Romney has tried to elide the problem by citing a state-federal distinction that nobody actually cares about in practice, but even that turns out to be false, as Romney once supported the hated individual mandate at the federal level.

And yet here he is, poised to assume the Republican nomination as Rick Perry tries to stave off a total implosion. It is as if the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination was about to fall into the hands of Paul Wolfowitz. What happened?

You know what would be fun? Watching a Romney White House dealing with wild-eyed, red-meat Republican majorities in the House and Senate. (Certainly more fun than the alternative: an Obama White House doing the same.) It could actually destroy the modern Republican party – or just Romney. Or possibly America. Or all three.

Romney's vetting will now come closer to the start of the primaries, and he remains without a natural constituency, outside of the Beltway crowd that the Republican base holds in almost as much contempt as they do President Obama.

A new Pew Research Center poll out Monday finds only 35% of those surveyed have at least a fair amount of confidence in Republican leaders on the deficit, compared to 47% in May. Sixty-two per cent have little or no confidence.

Only 62% of Republicans have confidence in their leaders on the deficit, down from 76% four months ago.

In contrast, President Obama has emerged relatively unscathed from this year's fiscal battles.

Fifty-two per cent of those surveyed said they have at least a fair amount of confidence in Obama on the deficit, close to his 53% rating last December.